Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Great Wall Lichens:The Great Wall at Mutianyu, Beijing,China. The wall was first built during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550 - 557) and then later rebuilt in the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). Dry and irradiated by harsh sunlight, for the most part it appears to be inimical to life.During a persistent search however, I find a number of small shaded microclimates in which communities of lichens thrive. It's tempting to believe that, these are as old as the Great Wall itself.

What is Microgeography ?

The microbiological world is a vast domain of life occupied by organisms which are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Because of their diminutive size, its denizens are largely ignored, yet in terms of impact and numbers, they represent the predominate form of life on earth. In fact, in the familiar settings of our towns and cities, microorganisms have established thriving and complex ecologies. Microgeography, explores the relationship between an urban environment and its microbial and human inhabitants through informed observation, and via a variety of playful and inventive strategies. Its aim is to take pedestrians off their predictable macroscopic paths and jolt them into a new awareness of the urban microbiological landscape. This blog documents the places where the boundaries between the microcosm and macrocosm have become visible through the impact of our activities on the urban microbes. It also invites the observer to question the influence of human activity upon this urban microbiological landscape, and hopefully through this, to extrapolate the impact of our actions on to the more visible world beyond.